Switching from PLD to WAR and need advice

[juniglee]

I'll weigh in as well. I was a Paladin main in 2.0 and 2.1, and for 2.2 I've switched to Warrior as the other tank in my static wanted to continue maining Paladin, and I thought that 2 Paladins was a pretty outdated concept. Plus variation is always nice.

In terms of gameplay, you have a similar 123 aggro combo to Paladin. However that's where the similarities end. The Warrior 123 aggro combo is just an aggro combo and does nothing more out of that. You also have two more combos to Warrior - the Storm's Path (-10% damage debuff) combo, and the Storm's Eye (-10% slashing resistance) combo. When you have enough of an aggro lead, you can play around with the other 2 combos to increase your Maim uptime, and to provide some utility outside of spamming the aggro combo.

Overpower is a conal shape AoE aggro tool. It's superiority over Flash is that it does damage, and thus generates more aggro than Flash, however it consumes TP, and it's a conal shape AoE, compared to Flash being a circular AoE and using mana instead.

Once you get Warrior, managing your Wrath stacks are important, but for the most parts:
1. Steel Cyclone functions as a way better AoE aggro tool than Flash. It requires 5 stacks of Wrath to use, which is easy enough if you open your first pull with Infuriate, and try ending your group of trash mobs with 5 stacks of Wrath, so that you go into the next pull with 5 stacks up for an opening Steel Cyclone.
2. Inner Beast is your bread and butter tool against bosses. For most bosses you can use it to reduce all incoming damage by 20% for 5 seconds, however against certain bosses like Twintania, it allows you to almost always mitigate 20% damage off spike damage like Death Sentence. Call it something of a cooldown in demand.

In terms of offensive buffs, Berserk and Fight or Flight would be your 2 similar skills, however Berserk also applies a Pacification debuff on yourself at the end of its duration. When planning on how to use Berserk, just keep in mind if that 5 seconds of Pacification can be spared in battle. I usually chain Unchained and Berserk together for the biggest damage (and biggest opening aggro).

Warriors don't have as superior defensive cooldowns as Paladin, but Vengeance works as a huge long duration mitigation tool. I'd say the most important part of playing Warrior defensively is knowing when and how to use Holmgang as a pseudo-Hallowed Ground. Keep in mind that your HP cannot drop below 1 for its duration, but it has a shorter duration compared to Hallowed Ground, and both you and the target are rooted to the spot for the duration of Holmgang (unless the target resists rooting).

[Kitru]

When you have enough of an aggro lead, you can play around with the other 2 combos to increase your Maim uptime, and to provide some utility outside of spamming the aggro combo.

BB spam is actually the worst possible rotation you can do as a WAR: it's got the lowest damage (barring just spamming SP) and isn't even the best enmity generator.

WAR has 3 basic useful rotations:

SE>BB>BB>BB: this is your highest enmity rotation. Use it at the start of the fight to generate your enmity cushion (if you're not doing the opening attack string that I use) or when you have someone riding your ass.
SE>BB: this is your highest damage rotation that also generates strong enmity. Use it when you damage taken isn't really an issue (re: when you don't need the SP debuff).
SE>SP: this is the rotation you use when you have your enmity cushion or when you are offtanking. It maintains both debuffs with 100% uptime and does the second highest damage of your rotations.

Overpower is a conal shape AoE aggro tool. It's superiority over Flash is that it does damage, and thus generates more aggro than Flash

Overpower generates more enmity not because it deals damage. Flash could just as easily generate more enmity than Overpower if the devs cranked up the enmity value on Flash but they didn't. In fact, against enemies with dramatically beefed up damage resistance, Flash actually generates more than Overpower because Flash simply generates enmity based upon your attack power (which also means that it doesn't benefit from FoF) whereas Overpower generates enmity based upon the damage you deal (damage absorbed by an absorb shield is still valued at its full value even if it throws up a 0).

Warriors don't have as superior defensive cooldowns as Paladin

WAR cds are weaker but on shorter CDs which does not mean that the WAR CD suite is inferior. If you use them like you would PLD cds (that is to say, holding on to them until you really need a CD) and using that as your point of comparison, you're doing it wrong. The best way to use the WAR CDs is to use them actively while staggering them. By staggering them, you can basically have some kind of CD active on you 100% of the time. PLD can't get anywhere close to that which is why they have to pick and choose when to use their CDs. A WAR that doesn't have 1-2 CDs on CD at any point in time (at least while they're tanking) is doing it wrong.

[juniglee]

BB spam is actually the worst possible rotation you can do as a WAR: it's got the lowest damage (barring just spamming SP) and isn't even the best enmity generator.

WAR has 3 basic useful rotations:

SE>BB>BB>BB: this is your highest enmity rotation. Use it at the start of the fight to generate your enmity cushion (if you're not doing the opening attack string that I use) or when you have someone riding your ass.
SE>BB: this is your highest damage rotation that also generates strong enmity. Use it when you damage taken isn't really an issue (re: when you don't need the SP debuff).
SE>SP: this is the rotation you use when you have your enmity cushion or when you are offtanking. It maintains both debuffs with 100% uptime and does the second highest damage of your rotations.

Yes I mean, once you have enough of an enmity lead, it allows you to play around with the other combos. I never said spamming BB combo was the optimal aggro rotation. To properly play Warrior to the full potential, you have to mix and match your combos, to give you constant debuff/Maim uptime, so that each BB combo counts. Hit slow, but hard.

Overpower generates more enmity not because it deals damage. Flash could just as easily generate more enmity than Overpower if the devs cranked up the enmity value on Flash but they didn't. In fact, against enemies with dramatically beefed up damage resistance, Flash actually generates more than Overpower because Flash simply generates enmity based upon your attack power (which also means that it doesn't benefit from FoF) whereas Overpower generates enmity based upon the damage you deal (damage absorbed by an absorb shield is still valued at its full value even if it throws up a 0).

Nice. I guess I learnt something new today. Although I hardly use Flash these days, I used to use it a lot more at a lower level since TP felt like it was at a premium.

WAR cds are weaker but on shorter CDs which does not mean that the WAR CD suite is inferior. If you use them like you would PLD cds (that is to say, holding on to them until you really need a CD) and using that as your point of comparison, you're doing it wrong. The best way to use the WAR CDs is to use them actively while staggering them. By staggering them, you can basically have some kind of CD active on you 100% of the time. PLD can't get anywhere close to that which is why they have to pick and choose when to use their CDs. A WAR that doesn't have 1-2 CDs on CD at any point in time (at least while they're tanking) is doing it wrong.

Thanks, I am still learning to manage my cooldowns as a Warrior. I have never found a need to keep CD's on constant uptime, since most contents don't need that, but to always have some CD's available (basically, as you say, holding on to them until I need one, like PLD). That's kind of something I need to learn manage myself too.

Warriors don't get an exclusive slot in party finder for a reason, 2 pld? Ok 2 war? No thanks. .

The only reason this happens is because for contents that do need a PLD, it involves chain stunning - this is something Warrior (and any other class in the game for that matter) cannot do. Paladins' real value for that slot is because they have an on-demand/instant GCD stun. Something no other class in this game has (the closest would be White Mage with spammable Holy, but they do not have a traited 6 seconds stun, and the skill requires 3 seconds before it goes off). You can bet that if Dragoons or Monks were able to chain stun, Paladins wouldn't hold the same value in parties it does now. This is more of a mechanics issue. Paladins are no better than Warriors for any content that does not involve chain stunning, nor to say Warriors are any better than Paladins.

The only reason I made the switch for my static is so that we don't have to lot on the same set of loot (2 people lotting against a Blade and a Shield, and nobody lotting against an Axe), and for building the Limit Break bar a little easier. You may argue its needlessness, but the Strength debuff from Rage of Halone does not stack, whereas with a 1 WAR/1 PLD combo, you can have both the Strength and Damage debuff from Rage of Halone/Storm's Path up on a single boss.